The Last Box of Whiskey Chocolates
by dandelion-heart
Summary: They were only for special occasions.


1 → sleepy tides

* * *

Houtarou slipped the box quietly under the covers and sighed. His watch flashed as his hands slipped into the pockets of his suit. He glanced around the room. It had just been cleaned, he noted, and the slim little books Eru carefully and considerately stacked side by side according to color had been cleared from the low-lying table on the other side of the bed. And yet, there was a curious musty smell all about, and he turned to the window. It had been left slightly open, and he chided himself for not having noticed before. The cicadas sung as they always did in the evening, a boisterous, consistent hum, and the soft evening glows of yellow floated in past thick white curtains. He stood a minute longer and then, hearing no other sound from out in the garden, stepped out of the room. The corridor was long and dark, and the soles of his shoes clicked sharply on the floor. He suddenly stopped, let out another sigh, and stepped back. As he reached to close the door, a flutter of wings by the window brought his gaze up and back into the empty room. There was a faint screen of dust over the window he could see better from this distance. Gentle, thin strokes of a finger had traced two names together. He turned quickly and left. Behind him the door creaked shut.

— — —

This was Eru's favorite time of the day. She no longer saw the red, misty dawns of autumn she once loved best, instead waking when the sun had already skimmed the very tops of the trees, "entirely by her own choice!" she would smile mischievously. By nightfall, she started to laugh that her bones were snoring. Houtarou would keep her hand in his and say nothing in reply.

He had promised to bring the box, "one last indulgence" she wheezed a particularly rainy afternoon when she couldn't stop coughing and clutching at his arm, not out of pain but slight panic he told himself silently over and over again. He came the day before with it tucked under his arm and her eyes grew wide.

"Houtarou-san, in my room! The nurses will catch us here in the open!" Her voice was no longer young, and it crackled with comforting lows and painful highs.

"Eru, I would rather we – "

"Shh," she beamed with excitement. "A farewell party in my room!"

She pressed her fingers to his lips before he could let out another sigh.

— — —

"Houtarou-san, why do you call the nurses before you visit?"

He looked at her with the hard gaze he had only ever used on her once before, when she was much younger and much wiser, and not as happy and grim and content with life reduced to a whisper of twilight and fireflies yet to be seen in some long-forgotten meadow. She prophesied about them in the spring of their second year of college, and he had felt desperately furious to stop her, to let her know he couldn't think of such things yet. Weak in retrospect, he found himself thinking odd times every odd year, but then he remembered how deeply she kissed him with reassurance and he felt his shoulders relax.

"I don't want to make your condition a mystery to solve," he answered bluntly, and she laughed, eyes crinkling. "You know why, you don't need to ask."

— — —

There was no pang when her hand left his or when it reached to pull back the coverlet. He had learned how to keep his heart organized, trained it to react by expectations. She gasped at the gleam of the box's cover.

"I had forgotten! Oh Houtarou-san, thank you! But, I won't forget what I promised, don't worry. I will practice self-control, and I will only have one."

She glanced back and Houtarou couldn't meet her eyes.

"A good plan, don't you agree? And then tomorrow I'll treat myself to two," she continued, watching him carefully. "And before you suggest I'm planning a pattern with three, well," she turned and faced him with a tender smile, "absolutely not! That's the secret of practicing control."

"Eru – " he started, voice barely a whisper and he felt his heart constrict at how easily it had given up the pretense. It was the sun-dipped afternoon of high school all over again, and he was reset to foolishly non-committal and she was the same, glorious mysterious waiting for him to listen give up wait here kiss back die a thousand times over when she drifted to sleep in the hospital bed with darkened eyes.

"All you need to do," she went on and he knew to look at her and her reaching hands, "is share them with me. That's all I plan to do today. A good plan, don't you agree?"

— — —

"I was never very good at practicing self-control," he murmurs to no one in particular out in the garden, the crickets chorusing by his feet and the moon round and shining like an eye of twilight, sparkling with firefly flame.

The one chocolate he had taken has melted away into the palm of his hand.

* * *

_a very belated birthday present for my darling Nayuki-Bunny; taking care of the sadness from the start means there are only happy times left to write about! if you enjoyed, please leave a review!_


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